January 2014

Campaigners for equal rights for women have always had to respond to arguments around women having autonomy over their own bodies. When it comes to controlling fertility, whether that be contraception or terminations, religious and moral arguments are open to modification, refinement and shifts in the relative balance of how much sway and influence they have. The availability of abortion offered to women through the 1967 Abortion Act is strictly proscribed and needs two doctors to approve the abortion request after the woman requesting the abortion has received counselling to help evaluate the request. A recent sting operation by the Daily Telegraph newspaper attempted to test the current operation of this process.

The Daily Telegraph sent undercover reporters, accompanying two pregnant women to nine clinics in different parts of the country, and filmed two doctors agreeing to proceed with a termination after being told the pregnant woman wanted an abortion because of the sex of the unborn child. Current legislation requires that a termination can only be granted if two doctors honestly believe a woman meets the legal test that continuing the pregnancy "would likely cause injury to the mental or physical health of the woman". A case was made for the doctors to be prosecuted, which Keir Starmer the Director of Public Prosecutions decided against, saying that although there was a realistic prospect of securing convictions, it would be against the public interest to take the doctors to trial.

It is arguable that the convoluted system of certification before abortion services can be made available to women should be ended, and that abortion should be treated as a clinical matter by doctors, rather like contraception and be available at a woman’s request. The case for abortion on demand is accepted by many where the pregnancy is a result of rape, incest, youth, and even poverty. Many though, who describe themselves as liberal, recoil at abortion services being made available if the request is made because of the gender of the unborn foetus, lest they end up supporting misogyny.

Abortion on the grounds of sex selection has reignited a debate about the criteria on which abortion services should be made available to women, resulting in some pro-choice campaigners to restrict choices by arguing that sex selection criteria, for example, is a reason to oppose abortion. When politicians like Sarah Wollaston, the Conservative MP, say that ‘selective abortion of baby girls harms women’, do they really intend that this should be a reason to force pregnant women to see an unwanted pregnancy through to full-term? Pro-life campaigners have used this issue, along with the One of Us campaign designed to establish the foetus as having its own legal status, to open up the debate into Abortion Rights, with the intention of restricting abortion choices for women.